You do realize the person that cured any cancer with a safe and effective treatment would be a made man for the rest of their life, right? Governments around the world, who's medical systems are taxed to the breaking point by cancer, would want the vaccine. People would still get cancer, and still need treatment.

An effective, actual cure for any form of cancer would be the holy grail, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The reality of the matter is that A) Cancer is neither one specific disease, and B) It's complex as fark.

hardinparamedic:You do realize the person that cured any cancer with a safe and effective treatment would be a made man for the rest of their life, right?

Again, Jonas Salk.

Not putting a patent on the polio vaccine was the difference between Salk being a well-off public figure who helped (and continuing to help) the world and a billionaire who helped only those who could pay. Guess which one would be the choice today.

hardinparamedic:NutWrench: This. Pharmaceutical companies don't want a cure, there's no money in that. They want a treatment.They want something that you'll have to keep taking for the rest of your life.

the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now, or GAIN, Act has piggybacked into the FDA bill reauthorizing user fees for drug approval. GAIN would provide five more years of monopoly protections for new antibiotics. Already receiving three to seven years of exclusivity, some antibiotics may receive up to 10 years of protection after market approval. This measure defies both the economics and biology of antibiotic resistance.

Oh, yeah. The guy who's vaccine required refrigeration and basically took care of first world problems, right?

Hey, look at this guy. This is Albin Sabin. He's a bad motherfarker. His work on Oral Polio Vaccine contributed to it's near eradication in third world countries. Check your shiat. You know why he's such a bad ass?

That's right. MOTHERfarkING SUGAR CUBES, biatch. His vaccine didn't require refrigeration, and even better, didn't have a needle involved. You ate the shiat.

demaL-demaL-yeH:/List of prophylaxis and cure medicines in the last forty years where the actual discovery was NOT paid for by taxpayers follows:

And how many diseases can be outright cured by a simple medication, but we're not doing so because it's cost effective?

I'm honestly curious about this: What in your mind is being suppressed for profit, but somehow there's no reliable source for this theory or evidence despite human nature or the fact that Governments would have a major interest in getting their hands on it? Cancer? HIV? Diabetes? Alzheimers?

NutWrench:the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now, or GAIN, Act has piggybacked into the FDA bill reauthorizing user fees for drug approval. GAIN would provide five more years of monopoly protections for new antibiotics. Already receiving three to seven years of exclusivity, some antibiotics may receive up to 10 years of protection after market approval. This measure defies both the economics and biology of antibiotic resistance.

That's not the question. The statement was "No cures". The point was "Antibiotics aren't a cure?"

Mid_mo_mad_man:Your partly correct. Viagra does pay the bills. It also subsidies research into cures for all sorts of conditions.

Viagra was also developed as an orphan medication to treat persistent pulmonary hypertension, a rare and life threatening complication in newborn infants. It wasn't originally intended as a boner pill. It was during Phase I and II Human testing that it's "side effect" of raging hard on was noticed.

You do realize the person that cured any cancer with a safe and effective treatment would be a made man for the rest of their life, right? Governments around the world, who's medical systems are taxed to the breaking point by cancer, would want the vaccine. People would still get cancer, and still need treatment.

An effective, actual cure for any form of cancer would be the holy grail, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The reality of the matter is that A) Cancer is neither one specific disease, and B) It's complex as fark.

"Prevent" not "cure."Curing someone's cancer is treating it. Preventing it (via a vaccine) would make one or two companies rich beyond their wildest dreams, but there is an industry dedicated to the treatment of cancer patients, and they have no interest in prevention.

I like how hating on the patent system has become this year's ironic mustache. I can't wait until there's some kind of sticker I can put on my car. Or a clever pacifier that makes my infant look like she hates patents.

Outrageous Muff:Right, because a patent laws are holding back vaccines that would make a company hundreds of billions of dollars.

Someone didn't read the article......

The basis of the article: You don't make hundreds of billions of dollars if the patent expires before your drug is brought to market.

Instead, a competing company immediately makes a generic version and sells it cheap -- since they didn't have millions and millions in research costs to recoup -- and takes all the market share and the profits.

Hey, look at this guy. This is Albin Sabin. He's a bad motherfarker. His work on Oral Polio Vaccine contributed to it's near eradication in third world countries. Check your shiat. You know why he's such a bad ass?

hardinparamedic:Mid_mo_mad_man: Your partly correct. Viagra does pay the bills. It also subsidies research into cures for all sorts of conditions.

Viagra was also developed as an orphan medication to treat persistent pulmonary hypertension, a rare and life threatening complication in newborn infants. It wasn't originally intended as a boner pill. It was during Phase I and II Human testing that it's "side effect" of raging hard on was noticed.

that was my nickname in highschool:I like how hating on the patent system has become this year's ironic mustache. I can't wait until there's some kind of sticker I can put on my car. Or a clever pacifier that makes my infant look like she hates patents.

I guess you're not involved with software patents then. It's been a few years since major problems started cropping up and we've been talking about it for a number of years.

give me doughnuts:Preventing it (via a vaccine) would make one or two companies rich beyond their wildest dreams, but there is an industry dedicated to the treatment of cancer patients, and they have no interest in prevention.

Name one mechanism, other than prevention of viral infections, that would prevent cancer via a vaccine? I think this is a topic that is far more complex than you seem to know. Part of the pathology of cancer is that it is able to mimic "self" cells, and deactivates cellular signals which would label it as a malignant cell to the immune system, preventing destruction of it's progeny. And it's not even that it hasn't been tried - immunotherapy has been tried over the past six decades. It's that our current technology and understanding of cancer doesn't allow us to target those cells and "flag" them for the immune system.

Again. Prevention of, say, breast cancer or lung cancer via a vaccine would be a goldmine. There would be no way to hide it. You'd have the First Infantry Division marching through your lab before you'd be able to hide it.

Outrageous Muff:Right, because a patent laws are holding back vaccines that would make a company hundreds of billions of dollars.

Did you not read it? The point is they wouldn't make the money because the patent would run out first. The clock is ticking while the research is ongoing--if the research takes too long, forget it.

Patents are both a blessing and a curse. The nature of the system means a drug that can't be patented won't be developed. (Consider: There is a drug out there that's a likely candidate for a male birth control pill. Given what we know of it already they could jump directly to Phase II human trials. It's been many years and nobody has touched it: The patent is long since expired. Infertility is a known side effect, all they actually need to know is if it works for all men.)

Not putting a patent on the polio vaccine was the difference between Salk being a well-off public figure who helped (and continuing to help) the world and a billionaire who helped only those who could pay. Guess which one would be the choice today.

In his era it didn't cost close to a billion dollars to bring a drug to market, either.

Mid_mo_mad_man:hardinparamedic: Mid_mo_mad_man: Your partly correct. Viagra does pay the bills. It also subsidies research into cures for all sorts of conditions.

Viagra was also developed as an orphan medication to treat persistent pulmonary hypertension, a rare and life threatening complication in newborn infants. It wasn't originally intended as a boner pill. It was during Phase I and II Human testing that it's "side effect" of raging hard on was noticed.

hardinparamedic:I'm honestly curious about this: What in your mind is being suppressed for profit, but somehow there's no reliable source for this theory or evidence despite human nature or the fact that Governments would have a major interest in getting their hands on it? Cancer? HIV? Diabetes? Alzheimers?

I'm not going to jump on the conspiracy theory bandwagon, but you don't have to suppress a cure to maximize profits. You just have to refuse to back any R&D for it.

UsikFark:Mid_mo_mad_man: hardinparamedic: Mid_mo_mad_man: Your partly correct. Viagra does pay the bills. It also subsidies research into cures for all sorts of conditions.

Viagra was also developed as an orphan medication to treat persistent pulmonary hypertension, a rare and life threatening complication in newborn infants. It wasn't originally intended as a boner pill. It was during Phase I and II Human testing that it's "side effect" of raging hard on was noticed.

give me doughnuts:Curing someone's cancer is treating it. Preventing it (via a vaccine) would make one or two companies rich beyond their wildest dreams, but there is an industry dedicated to the treatment of cancer patients, and they have no interest in prevention.

It seems they might have an interest in becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams and crushing all of their competitors.

nosferatublue:Outrageous Muff: Right, because a patent laws are holding back vaccines that would make a company hundreds of billions of dollars.

vudukungfu: If only cancer only infected those who seek to block its cure and treatment.

thatboyoverthere: Right. Lets ask all those thalidomide kids what they think about rushed medicene.

hardinparamedic: Yeah, it's patent laws that are holding us back.

Aaaaaaand none of you bothered to read the article, did you.

Not a solitary one; the argument is sound. Medicine is driven on profits. If the research takes longer than the patent protection, then there is zero potential profit because competitors can and will legally reverse-engineer your solution and put it on the market for a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time.

d23:I guess you're not involved with software patents then. It's been a few years since major problems started cropping up and we've been talking about it for a number of years.

I'm an EE turned patent lawyer. Software patents are a sizable chunk of my practice. People on the inside have recognized the problem for years. But now all kinds of folks who don't work in tech or the law suddenly have all sorts of well-thought-out but mostly uninformed opinions about it.

I'm not talking about Fark. I enjoy the opportunity to play Teiritzamna's Bingo. But the questions I get at networking and family events get pretty tiresome--like a doctor getting hassled about the insurance industry.

hardinparamedic:give me doughnuts: Preventing it (via a vaccine) would make one or two companies rich beyond their wildest dreams, but there is an industry dedicated to the treatment of cancer patients, and they have no interest in prevention.

Name one mechanism, other than prevention of viral infections, that would prevent cancer via a vaccine? I think this is a topic that is far more complex than you seem to know. Part of the pathology of cancer is that it is able to mimic "self" cells, and deactivates cellular signals which would label it as a malignant cell to the immune system, preventing destruction of it's progeny. And it's not even that it hasn't been tried - immunotherapy has been tried over the past six decades. It's that our current technology and understanding of cancer doesn't allow us to target those cells and "flag" them for the immune system.

Again. Prevention of, say, breast cancer or lung cancer via a vaccine would be a goldmine. There would be no way to hide it. You'd have the First Infantry Division marching through your lab before you'd be able to hide it.

UsikFark:Mid_mo_mad_man: hardinparamedic: Mid_mo_mad_man: Your partly correct. Viagra does pay the bills. It also subsidies research into cures for all sorts of conditions.

Viagra was also developed as an orphan medication to treat persistent pulmonary hypertension, a rare and life threatening complication in newborn infants. It wasn't originally intended as a boner pill. It was during Phase I and II Human testing that it's "side effect" of raging hard on was noticed.

It's also useful with alitude sickness and adapting to the thin air.

Boner pills on mount Everest?

Or when crossing the Andes in second-hand SUVs.

/just make sure you get rid of the Vaseline and tampons before you reach the Chilean border//and the candied cocaine you got at a gas station///All Adders Are Puffs

If you want R&D dollars, work on pills that give men boners, regrow hair, or make you thinner.Prevent cancer?! fark that, there's more money in treatment.

This is such juvenille/stoner logic. If a corporation could find a vaccine for cancers, the profits would be staggering. If you think people will pay a lot of money to get a fuller head of hair, think of how much they'll pay to avoid cancer.

" But .... but .... but .... the money is in the treatments, not the preventions!!!!!".

Yes, but who is the customer base for treatments? The small percentage of people who get a specific cancer (and their need for treatments is limited as they either die or go into remission). Compare that for the customer base for a possible breast cancer vaccine ....... every female walking planet earth.